By Amy Nickerson
Bronwyn Funiciello says her daughter used to be happy to go to school but now has to be coaxed and coerced every day.
Last year, her daughter attended a special language-learning disabilities centre at Lady Evelyn Alternative School. Now she is in a third-grade classroom with 30 other children, including several who have different special needs.
The integration is part of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board’s three-year plan to restructure the special education program. This week, the school board debated more changes to the special-education program.
This will mean many separate classes for children with learning disabilities will be phased out and the number of educational assistants for these children will be reduced from 535 to 140 by 2003.
Last year, $3.2 million was trimmed from the special-education budget. The proposed changes to the program will see a further reduction of $1.6 million.
However, even with the proposed reductions, there will be a $12-million funding deficit in the 2000-2001 special education budget.
Currently, there are about 6,000 elementary school children in the Ottawa-Carleton region who are enrolled in the special-education program.
About 3,000 are educated in special classes. Under the proposed program, most of these children would be integrated into regular classrooms.
James Grieve, the board’s director of education, says the board plans to adopt a team approach to special education that will allow social workers, psychologists and other professionals to work with teachers in order to provide the services needed by these students.
Money will be set aside to train the teachers on dealing with students’ special needs in the classroom.
Trustee Lynn Graham says she is nervous about the fate of special education.
“I cannot find many parents who find this is a good trend and I am deeply concerned about that,” she says.
“I see zero classes for students with learning disabilities and it just breaks my heart.”
Board chair Albert Chambers says the integration of special-needs children into the classroom will only be successful if the resources are there.
“I think there will be little changes for next year,” he says. “However, if we are forced to continue to take dollars out of special education, we are going to have a crippled capacity to deliver a good education to children with special needs.”
Funiciello says she worries about her daughter’s speech therapy. Proposed changes to the special-education program will mean the number of speech pathologists who service the schools will be reduced from 22 to 14.
“There is going to be even more demand,” she says. “Yet they are not increasing the supports, they are decreasing them.”